How to Be Brave

by E. Katherine Kottaras

  Positive Thought #7: I’m not dressed like an Oreo cookie.

  Positive Thought #8: I’m taking a line from the cheerleading packet: #YOLO.

  Shit. That last one’s actually not very positive. It’s pretty damn depressing when you take a minute to really think about it.

  My nightmarish reverie is interrupted by Avery’s shrill voice in a microphone. “Okay, you guys! Let’s go! It’s time to do this thing!” She instructs us to come up closer to her to another yellow line and to group ourselves according to height. We arrange and rearrange, and I end up at the farthest end. My fellow normal has moved toward the middle, and instead, I’m next to a tall, svelte blonde in lime-green leggings with the word SASSY imprinted on her ass.

  Chloe instructs us to state our name, our year, and one word to describe us. Because I’m at the end of the line, I’m first. Great.

  Deep breath. “Hey, everyone. I’m Georgia—”

  “We can’t hear you,” Avery bellows into the mic. “Speak up, please.”

  “Sorry!” I yell as loud as I can, but I’m not sure if it’s loud enough. “I’m Georgia, I’m a senior, and my word is … um, happy!” Oh my God, what a fucking lie. That’s the best you could come up with, Georgia?

  No one says anything, but I see Liss nod and wave and give another thumbs-up (so forced), and Avery moves down the line one by one. Turns out Sassy-pants’ name is Audrey, she’s a sophomore, and her word is, of course, sassy (she flashes her ass and everyone giggles), and my fellow normal’s name is Mary, she’s a freshman, and her word is cheerful. Way to be creative, Mary, I think. But then again, who am I to talk? I’m the fucking seventh dwarf.

  After every girl has given her favorite inane modifier, Avery takes charge again. “Okay, girls! We have three full afternoons of tryouts. Each day, a third of you will be cut. It’s going to be intense. It’s going to be stressful. But it’s also going to be fun, believe you me.” She giggles at her own little secret joke, and I’m already annoyed. “So now, to start, we’re going to begin with the fun part! We’re going to blast some music, a medley, if you will, and we’re going to ask you to just break out, you know, to freestyle it.”

  I turn to Sassy-pants—excuse me, I mean Audrey. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “She wants us to dance,” she says, smiling. “It’s a test to see if we can just like let loose or whatever.”

  “Oh.” A test. A dance test. A Let Loose test.

  Okay, then. I mean, I’m good at tests. I can do this.

  I work up my nerve by shaking out my wrists and jumping in place. Chloe walks up to the stereo and presses a button on her iPhone. A lone electronic tune starts low and quickly gains volume, shaking the walls along with the girls around me.

  “Oh my God, Taylor Swift! All right!”

  Here’s the thing. I love to dance. I just don’t get to do it that much. Sometimes my parents would take me to huge Greek banquets where I’d get dizzy in the endless circles of dance, but I don’t go to school dances or anything. Liss and I did try to go to one freshman year. It was mostly lame—well, except for when it got shut down. That actually turned out to be pretty awesome. We sat on the bleachers for a good hour while the juniors and seniors humped in the middle of the dance floor. And I don’t mean figuratively humped. I mean literally, in the true dictionary sense of the word. Humped, as in had sex. (And yes, it’s in the dictionary, listed as #4. Slang: vulgar. An act or instance of coitus. And yes, I looked it up.) Mrs. O’Brien, the since-retired math teacher, went to break up the massive swell of kids who were congregated together at the middle of the dance floor. Turned out Tim Johnson had his you-know-what in Maggie Kimmel’s you-know-where. Most of the kids in the swarm didn’t know what was happening—they were just joining the bumping and grinding bandwagon—but Mrs. O’Brien almost had to get a bucket of water to break apart the act that was occurring at the center of the storm. Not even kidding. Principal Q-tip was called in, and he shut down the dance and everyone booed him.

  We ended up out on the curb. We called our parents, but because of Saturday night traffic, it took my mom forty-five minutes to get us, and you should have heard her screaming into the phone that Monday morning. “Nine-thirty P.M. on a Saturday night in the middle of Chicago, you throw underaged, minor girls on the street? What are you, fucking insane?” I actually thought she was serious about suing the school, but I soon realized that my parents didn’t have enough money to hire a lawyer, and it eventually became one of those crazy stories we told over dinner. I still don’t know how it didn’t make the news.

  All dances were canceled that year and the next, and by the time they reinstated them our junior year, I could really have cared less. Plus my mom wouldn’t have let me go, anyway. Even so, Liss and I have spent many a Friday night turning my bedroom into a miniclub with Christmas lights and my blaring speakers. We could dance for hours on my bed. When she was feeling good, my mom would come in sometimes to join us. And she had moves. She mostly loved to listen to the blues and jazz—Nina Simone, Miles Davis, et cetera—but she was also raised on disco, Michael Jackson and Madonna and all that. She was a product of the late seventies and early eighties, after all. I know how to let loose. I learned from the best.

  So I hear the music and decide to just do it. Just have fun. Taylor’s telling me that it’s gonna be all right, and right now, in this moment, I believe her. I throw caution to the wind. I chill. I relax. I move and shake and spin and whirl. Audrey and I are jumping and smiling and I’m waving my arms and shaking my hips. The music changes, first some Beyoncé, then Katy Perry, and Avery’s yelling into the microphone, “I want to see your real spirit!” and I’m totally there. I’m dancing, and I’m alive, and this is my time. This is my day.

  * * *

  Well, except maybe it’s not. I get cut after the first round. Not after the dancing; I made it through that. But they ask us to show them three cheers and to do a trick if we know any, so I split the V and dotted the I, and I curled the C all the way to T-O-R-Y. I even did a cartwheel and a round-off. But it wasn’t enough. I was let go. After the first day.

  Me and three other girls, all freshmen, are cut. When Avery says their names, she’s all nice and friendly and sympathetic, but when she comes to mine, she’s cold and bitter. I look up at Liss, but seeing her frown and her hands pressed over her heart almost makes me cry.

  After we’re all released, I make my way to the locker room, trying not to run to be the first one out of there. The other little freshman girls are devastated and they’re all hugging and crying and wiping their running mascara in the mirror. I feel bad for them, too.

  I open my locker and pull out my bag. I reach inside, my fingers feeling for my Be Brave Do Everything list. I take out a pen and cross out #7. Try out for cheerleading. Time for something else, I guess.

  Liss runs in and wraps her arms around me. “I’m so sorry. That totally sucks. You did great, though. So great.”

  “Yeah.” I sigh, folding up the paper. “I can’t believe Oreo Cupcake is still in the running.”

  “Oh, her. She’s related to Avery’s number two.”

  “Who? Chloe?”

  “Yeah. Her name’s Mary. She’s a freshman, and she’s Chloe’s cousin. Gregg told me. He lives down the street from them.”

  “Shit. It’s totally rigged.” Where’s the Positive Thought in that?

  “I know, right?” Liss says. “She didn’t even do a cartwheel or anything.”

  “And she’s just as fat as me.…”

  “Georgia, you’re not fat,” Liss chides me, her nostrils flaring, which they do when she’s being totally, utterly honest. “So stop it.”

  “Thanks.” I shrug. I change the subject. “Well, I guess that’s that.”

  “Shall we look at the list? Do you have any clue about what’s next? There’s so much more to do!”

  She’s right. This was just one stupid idea. I’ve got like fourteen other stupid ideas left to try. Positive Thought #9.

&
nbsp; “Let’s do it,” I say. I throw my bag over my shoulder and slam my locker shut. “Let’s blow this Popsicle stand.”

  We head out into the city, leaving the herd of artificial perkiness and nepotism behind us.

  * * *

  There’s this one painting I love:

  It’s small and faint and hidden among the others,

  she made so many.

  She covered our walls, ceiling to floor,

  with paintings and drawings

  nudes and figures

  oils and pastels

  circular mounds of golds and greens.

  Abstracts—

  figurations, she called them—

  all of it obscure

  and subtle

  and profound.

  Or at least that’s what the pamphlets

  at her gallery shows read.

  But then there’s this one.

  She painted it when I was seven.

  She said, Sit there, at the kitchen table,

  and look out the window,

  as though you’re looking toward the future.

  I sat with her for hours,

  a little each day for a week,

  trying hard not to fidget,

  just like she said.

  She took her time,

  and when she was done,

  she didn’t like it.

  In the painting,

  my profile is soft and clear,

  my eyes serious and distant.

  I was only a child.

  I made you look too old, she said.

  But she saw something in me,

  something no one else ever has.

  I’m trying to see it, too.

  4

  The next day, we cut class. It’s the most logical item on the list, and it’s by far the easiest to accomplish. Not that I’d ever done it before. I’m too much of a Goody Two-shoes. Well, that, and my mom would have killed me had I cut school and wandered the city without telling her where I was.

  And it’s not like it’s a big deal. We just meet up at the bus stop, and instead of walking south, we walk east, toward the lake. It’s a perfect day for a day off, too. Fall is on its way in. It’s breezy and clear and beautiful in every way.

  “What should we do today?” I feel more buoyant with every step that we take away from Webster.

  “I don’t know … we could do anything, really. Movie, shopping…”

  “Eh, I don’t know,” I say. “That sounds so boring.”

  “Well, what, then? It’s your day.”

  “How about the zoo and a museum? Maybe the Art Institute?”

  Liss teases me, “You can take the dork out of the classroom, but you can’t take the classroom out of the dork.”

  “Hey!” I nudge her, but she’s right. I’m a big dork. I can’t even cut class correctly. What the hell do people do when they cut class? They always seem so badass, and now here I am not knowing what to do first.

  We end up wandering the streets in the direction of the zoo, looking in the windows of closed shops and trying on sunglasses at CVS. We get hungry, so we duck into a Starbucks for a venti Caramel Frappuccino with extra whipped cream (we split it), a slice of pumpkin bread (for Liss), and a heated chocolate croissant (all mine).

  Next stop, Lincoln Park Zoo. It’s empty compared with other times I’ve been here, but then again it’s a Thursday morning and they only just opened and the only people interested and/or available to spend hours gazing at gorillas and polar bears are stay-at-home moms, small-town tourists, and wannabe-delinquent teenagers like us.

  We park ourselves right near the west entrance at the sea lions, which might be one of my most favorite spots in the entire world. They have these wooden benches stacked like bleachers that rise up and look out over the blue pool of water where the sea lions just swim and swim and swim. Their sleek bullet bodies speed underwater in smooth circles around the perimeter of the pool. And then, once they’ve had enough, they hoist themselves onto a rock, and suddenly they’re heavy and solid, a thick mass of blubber and muscle baking in the sun. They wiggle and writhe awkwardly. In those moments, they’re almost human. And then, when they’ve had enough, they’re underwater again, all grace and beauty. I could watch them for hours. It’s what my mom called meditative.

  “You can cross something off your list now.” Liss takes a sip of the Frappuccino and then hands it to me. “Like for real.”

  “But we’re going to do this again, right?” I open the lid and lick off some whipped cream. “I mean, if we don’t get caught.”

  “We’re not going to get caught. And yes, we’ll do this again.”

  “Okay, cool.” I hand the Frappuccino back to Liss, take out the list, and cross out #11. Cut class. “But why do I feel like I haven’t actually accomplished something? All we did was walk down the street. And even if we get caught, so what? I want to do something.”

  “Well, let’s look at that list again.”

  I hand it to Liss and she rereads it and then bites her nails while she tries to devise a plan for our next step.

  I stare out at the sea lions. One is rubbing his back against the rocks like a giant cat. He rolls over and exhales onto his belly. He blows a big sigh out his nose. What a life. Not a care in the world. Oh, to be so lucky.

  And then, I feel someone staring at me. You know that feeling, like a tiny little spider is crawling up your neck? I look behind me, and lo and behold, someone is staring at me. A girl my age with long, black dreads, ripped tights, and big ol’ combat boots. Her big brown eyes are locked on me, and even though I sort of frown at her to make her stop staring, she doesn’t stop. Instead, she smiles.

  I turn my gaze back to the sea lions. “Freakazoid warning,” I mutter to Liss. “Upper bleachers, three o’clock.”

  Liss snaps her neck to look at her. Then she hurtles back around and pretends to point at the sea lion, who has now made his way back into the water. “I know her,” she whispers. “That’s Baseline Evelyn. She just moved here. She goes to Webster.”

  “Wait. How do you know her?” I whisper back. “And what does that mean? Why ‘baseline’?”

  “We have PE together. And ‘baseline’ because she has to take drug tests every month to prove to her parents that she hasn’t used.”

  “Shit.” I take a bite of my croissant. “And I thought I had problems.”

  “Could be your entry into item number twelve.” Liss shrugs, slurping up some more Frappuccino.

  “Hm. Indeed.”

  I look back over my shoulder. Evelyn’s still staring, but now she’s also pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and she’s pounding them rhythmically into her fist, waiting for me to do something.

  So I do something. I wave.

  “What are you doing?” Liss asks.

  Before I can answer, Evelyn has dropped her cigarettes in her bag and is stepping down across the benches toward us and sits down next to me. “The sea lions are nice, right?”

  “Um, yeah,” I agree, not knowing what else to say.

  “You’re Evelyn, right?” Liss puts her hand out. “We have gym together. This is Georgia.”

  Evelyn takes her hand and shakes it and then nods at me. “I followed you here, you know.”

  I laugh and Liss laughs and Evelyn laughs, but I’m not sure she knows what she’s laughing about. I know that I’m laughing because that’s just fucking weird.

  “Um, okay,” I say. “All the way from Webster?”

  “No. I spotted you at CVS. Then I followed you to Starbucks. Then I followed you here.”

  “Why’d you follow us?”

  “Why not? Had nothing else to do. I mean, you two look cool, I guess. And it was obvious you weren’t going to school today. But it was a little too obvious.” Whoa, this one’s honest. “You look like a couple of convicted outlaws, looking over your shoulders every two minutes.”

  “What? Us?” Liss pretends she’s offended. “No way!”

  “Really?” I am actually of
fended. “It’s that obvious?”

  “Yes, it is that obvious.” She puts her hand into her bag and pulls out a pair of brand-new sunglasses. “Oh, and I got you these.” She hands them to Liss.

  They’re bright red and the tag is still on. “Hey, are these the ones I was trying on at CVS?”

  “Yeah, you looked good in them.”

  “Awesome.” Liss rips off the tag. “Thanks!”

  “Wait,” I say. “Did you steal those?”

  “I admit to nothing.” She reaches back into her bag, and this time she pulls out a cigarette. “Here, do you want a smoke?”

  Liss reaches out to take one even though she doesn’t smoke, and the teacher’s pet in me yells, Red light, red light!

  “I’ve never smoked before,” Liss admits.

  Evelyn shrugs and lights a cigarette while she speaks. “Whatever. I don’t care. There’s a first time for everything. Just know that it’ll hurt the first time. Like sex. Shit. All good things hurt the first time.” She shakes her head and exhales. Plumes of cinnamon-scented smoke swirl around us. “I never realized that before saying it aloud just now. Life. What a fucking joke.”

  Jesus. Who is this girl? Why did I have to wave her over? Me and my big ideas. “And ahem, smoking is not on the list,” I mutter to Liss. I try to catch her eye to impart a guilt trip, but she’s camouflaged by her brand-new sunglasses.

  “What list?” Evelyn says, taking a drag and handing it to Liss. “Is that what you were reading? What kind of list is it? Can I see it?”

  Liss sucks on the cigarette and instantly coughs, a low, barking cough like someone’s hit her in the chest with their fist. “Shit! Ouch. What is that?”

  “Oh, cloves. Yeah, probably should start you on something lighter. But nothing tastes as good as cloves. They’re more expensive, but what the hell, you know? I don’t buy that much shit, so I splurge on the good stuff.”

  Evelyn takes the cigarette back from Liss, who’s still struggling to catch her breath, and she presses it between her lips, lets it hang there like it’s a lollipop. “So, this list? What is it?”

  “It’s nothing—” I try to say, but Liss interrupts me with the full story.